Monday, January 16, 2006

Skiing on the Alps

I missed the bus to the ski resort (l'Eclose) recommended by Julian. While talking to the ticket agent trying to figure when the next bus was, I felt someone pulled my jacket from behind. It was a French lady who stood behind me in the line. She told me that I could catch a 10:30 bus to Chamrouse (where the 1968 Olympic winter games were held). Given that I did not have much time, I decided to go there instead.

The bus ride was about 1 hour. Once there, I wanted to make sure of the time of the last returning was. I asked a passenger and was told me it was at 17:25. I was glad that I asked because I was under an impressive that it was at 18:45, which was actually only for Saturday.

It took a while to get oriented figuring out where to buy the lift tickets and rent skis and shoes, etc. It was about noon when I got on the lift. The surroundings were beautiful. Various sharp mountaintops were covered by snow. It was just too bad that my camera ran off power. Although I brought backup batteries, I left them in the bag I stored in the ski rental office.

The degree of difficulty was classified in to green, blue, red and black. Red here was roughly a black equivalent in the US and black was similar to a double black diamond. But they were relatively easier here. Since I did not know the trails well, I ended up on all different kinds of slopes (blue, red and black). Once to my dismay and horror I found myself on a mogul field. I somehow managed to plow myself out of it. Near the end I decided to try a green slope just to warm down. At this point, I was congratulating myself for a perfect skiing day without a serious fall. Bang, I felt one of my skis hit a hard object and I felt to the ground and made a 360 tumble. When I managed to pull myself up, I noticed that I had just hit a rock. Well, this was definitely a good indication for calling it a day.